


Drowned Jack Has Got Your Back

by kitewolf



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Death, Gen, Implied Child Abuse, Urban Legends, children dying, folklore gods, implied suicides and discussion of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5865412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitewolf/pseuds/kitewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An urban legend grows over the years, a tale of Drowned Jack, Saint of Suicides and protector of children.<br/>They're different from Jack Frost's believers, but Jack is just as devoted to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [prompt on the kinkmeme](http://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/2200.html?thread=2056600#cmt2056600) from, you know, three years ago that's already been filled by much more talented people. Definitely go read the others as well, if this prompt sounds at all interesting to you. I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes or being super creepy by filling something so old, if I am, I apologize.
> 
> "Inspired by this: [ http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1997-06-05/news/myths-over-miami](http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1997-06-05/news/myths-over-miami%20)  
> A folk religion was invented by the homeless and housing-insecure children of Miami, for those that skipped the article. And the interesting thing is that in this religion, evil is winning. The world is dark and dangerous, filled with monsters barely held back by the good guys.
> 
> The story idea: Pre-movie Jack actually does have believers. It's just that they don't believe in Jack Frost.
> 
> A children's folk religion somehow ended up incorporating Jack Frost into their mythology. Only, being a religion of unsafe and frightened children, it's not really his 'fun' side they were interested in. 
> 
> Jack Frost becomes Jack, saint of suicides, the guardian of those that kill themselves, the promise of a painless end if it gets to be too much. And gradually, due to the nature of religion and legends, he's attributed with other aspects: If you leave Jack oranges he'll make it snow when you ask, say Jack's name three times at midnight and he'll hear whatever you say next, Jack can make people overlook you if you're in danger, Jack will kiss the breath from your lungs if you go out in a snow storm and say you want to die....
> 
> The number of children who believe in the saint is small, but they believe very fervently. Jack doesn't exactly enjoy that identity, but he's very protective of the saint's believers. 
> 
> Post-movie, one of the saint's believers invokes him, and Jack goes to the child's aid. One of the guardians ends up tagging along, and they're very disturbed by what they see.
> 
> +1 Jack as the saint looks and acts different from his normal self.  
> +5 Jack doesn't notice the change, but the guardians do."

The first few decades of existence were a blur to Jack. He spent a lot of time in the woods playing tricks on the animals. He’d pass the time freezing a layer of snow just as a fox pounced or slicking the surface of a pond just as a deer bent to drink. But the animals learned to avoid him as avidly as any of them avoided humans and it got boring.

 

He would return to the village, every now and again. Just to check whether anything had changed, like worrying a loose tooth with his tongue. But unlike the animals, no humans ever saw him and for some reason it hurt to see them grow older without him.

 

The first child he saved from harm was almost an accident. It had been years, generations, since he’d visited the village. But the group had come running into _his_ forest chasing the boy. They were calling him names and throwing things and when the boy they chased tripped they’d surrounded him in a moment.

 

Jack, up until that point, hadn’t seen anything as needlessly violent as the first kick to that boy’s ribs. Four children younger than he was – younger than he looked, anyway – intent on causing pain. He watched with sick interest and it didn’t occur to him to interfere.

 

Until they parted to let another child step up with an upraised _club_.

 

Jack drew in a sharp breath and blew it out sharper, suddenly fiercely protective. Not in _his_ forest. The snow in the clearing exploded up. The attackers were knocked back and fallen child encased in snow.

 

Chased by the sudden cutting blizzard, confused and bruised, they fled, yelling. When they’d gone, Jack let the layer of soft snow fall from the child. The kid had his arms thrown up over his head and was shivering but after a few moments he cracked an eyelid. When he saw the empty ground, with its fresh white coat over tree trunks and bushes, he sat up and blinked. He looked around and then looked down at his own hands for a long time.

 

The boy didn’t see Jack when he stood or when he stumbled off back towards the town. For his part, Jack didn’t say anything about the slight. He felt a bit guilty about not stopping it sooner.

 

Jack left the village for the first time shortly after that. What he’d seen and done made him feel sick and wrong to think of. And besides he had no reason to think of the village as _his_ anyway.

 

He found a little girl in the snow on the other side of the continent. She was out in the wilderness, far enough away from any house or road that it was honestly a mystery to him how she’d got there. When he came across her it was night. And she was small.

 

Her breath had stopped making ghostly imprints in the air.

 

Exploding snow wouldn’t have helped her. She either didn’t see arrow he carved in front of her or didn’t understand. He threw a snowball to get her attention but it only made her jump and then start to cry, which was _even worse_. He tried everything until he was standing, panting in front of her, helpless. In the end he sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her and told her she would be okay. But she couldn’t hear him and his touch only stole what little warmth she had left.

 

Jack tried not to think of that night again. He had liked helping the beaten boy much better, when he’d actually been able to do something.

 

Over time he stopped expecting people to know him. Since he wasn’t a person, it wasn’t like it mattered that they saw right through him. He went into towns and cities more and more because people there didn’t spook like animals and they had _glorious_ reactions to his pranks.

 

He brought snow to a city in the east because it was dark and gritty and smoky and he rather thought it would be improved by a good dusting in clean white. He flew down the narrow streets and laughed when kids came tumbling out of apartment buildings in oversized, bulky padded coats. He stopped over a carriage when he saw a man furious beating snow off its wooden roof and dumped another few inches just to mess with him. As dark fell he found two kids in a short alley, huddled up against a warm exposed chimney wall. They unsold newspapers pulled up over them like blankets.

 

He frowned and stopped short, because it wasn’t like he’d meant the snow to be bad for them. So, he squatted next to them and coaxed up a small flurry. A gratifying look of amazement broke over the kids’ faces at the dancing shapes the breeze carved. They seemed almost incidental at first, like finding ships and dragons in clouds, but he gradually made the edges sharper and cleaner. He marched a tiny platoon of breezy, indistinct soldiers past their feet and followed it up with mounted cavalry. As they past, he made a tiny maiden, to wave her white kerchief after them.

 

The kids laughed and tumbled out of their warm nook into the shapes he’d made. He couldn’t really keep the breezes under control with them in the middle but he helped their own efforts as they tried their own hands at shaping the snow.

 

When they finally fell back against the warm bricks, exhausted, he watched the smiles on their sleeping faces and felt a bit lighter for it.

 

Jack spent his time amusing himself in whatever way crossed his mind. It’s fun to watch people skating or making snow angels and snow men, so he spends more and more time in cities or on farms or in suburbs. And after eternity wandering the world, walking populated streets and looking in windows, playing pranks that stayed just this side of funny, Jack had learned that fear was an important thing.

 

Fear was what kept some children from climbing over the balcony edge where they might fall, even if they were careful. It stopped them reaching out to touch a hot oven. It could make them safer for days or weeks by making them keep just quiet enough to not draw attention. Fear could keep a child from walking on ice too thin to hold her weight.

 

He sees kids that could use more of it. There are kids that aren’t afraid of putting stones in snowballs and kids that find their courage in overpowering groups. Sometimes, in a black mood and with a freezing wind, he was the one that gave it to them.

 

But fear isn’t some directionless, fathomless, inexplicable thing. It shouldn’t be, anyway. He’s also seen kids worn through in cruel ways from too much fear. So Jack would fight to protect _anyone_ from even a drop more fear than they needed.

 

Sometimes fighting fear meant throwing snowballs at bullies. Sometimes it meant blooming frost flowers for kids stuck outside at night.

 

Once, Jack drifted lazily into a clearing around a pond, following a whisper on a breeze that was too faint and hoarse to make out, and fighting fear meant being afraid himself.

 

The source of the whispering was a child half his size standing in cold water up to her knees. She had her hands clutched in front of her chest and was speaking fervently.

 

Jack drifted around her, wary. She’d obviously been standing there in the cold and wet too long. She was no longer shivering and her breath puffed out quick and short between her words. Her clasped hands were white at the joints. He caught the end of a plea, “—know, please. Does it hurt?”

 

Her question stirred something sudden and unexpectedly huge inside of him. He couldn’t have said what she was referring to, but out there, in the water, something dark thrashed at the edge of his vision, his throat ached, and for a long, cold moment he was looking at the moon not through clear night air but through thick, frosted glass. The feeling faded, just as suddenly, and he gasped painfully, wheeling back from the girl. “ _Yes_ ,” he answered, forcefully.

 

She didn’t see him, nobody ever did, but she started to sob.

 

Jack floated back to her. The inexplicable fear had evaporated as quickly as it’d come and he felt mean and petty to have made her cry. Except, no, that wasn’t right. He couldn’t have made her cry because she couldn’t hear him.

 

Still, her pleading hung in the air around them and he couldn’t let her stay out much longer. But there wasn’t much he could do, either. If he froze the pond, it would trap her, and calling a guiding breeze would just freeze her quicker. He knew from experience touching her wasn’t a great idea.

 

Uselessly, he held a hand out toward her. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, trying to be comforting. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid.” They were the kind of words he might have heard a mother soothing with. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay.”

 

She went on crying, burying her face in her hands. The action brought her forward slightly, leaning into Jack’s hand for a moment.

 

Jack kept talking to her softly. Eventually, her sobs turned to sniffles that she smothered in the arm of her jacket and Jack started urging her to go home.

 

With one last sniffle, and a determined nod, she did just that. She sloshed her way back toward shore unsteadily and disappeared in the direction of the town.

 

Jack’s heart unclenched, his breath coming a bit easier. He had been so afraid that she was going to stay in that pond forever.

 

Later, he would privately label that the first incident. His memory’s not so good, but it’s first time he can pinpoint feeling the now familiar bubble of fear that wasn’t his own.

 

It’s like some sort of horrible flower blossoming after her. A boom of children calling to him. Their entreaties were always sudden and hot. Immediate. They shuddered at his throat like a panicked pulse and he knew if he tried to ignore them they would grow unbearable, overwhelming. But there was never any good reason to let it get to that point.

 

The children who called on him needed him. They couldn’t see or hear him, but they knew when he was there. They knew he would help.

 

He began to find more and more crying children with their feet in water, waiting until it was safe to go home. Stoic little girls and boys who never said a word of their troubles out loud, but said “Thanks, Jack” when they left. He found an older boy in a park huddled under a jacket and six inches of snow and too far gone for help. Jack hopelessly ran his fingers over his hair. Before he left he bent and kissed him, a gesture echoed from countless parents and older siblings he’d witnessed through windows.

 

He hadn’t expected for the freezing child’s breath to come back with him. The cold air of it shocked his lungs and made him cough. The boy never drew another, but he was smiling when Jack leapt into the air and fled.

 

There was no good reason to ignore their calls, but the flicker of their trust and hope at the base of his throat was choking. He spent a miserable time in a forest far away from anyone, resisting, unable to breathe past it. He knew he was betraying them by not coming, but he didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to have to be another child’s last refuge.

 

But he couldn’t refuse them forever. They were lost and afraid and he was the one that could help, even if it meant just making sure they weren’t alone at the last.

 

The number of kids calling on him grew. He started to find kids in warmer climates. He couldn’t dance on lakes or bring flurries to them, but most of them didn’t seem to want that, anyway. In Florida they would wade into the surf and in Georgia they filled bathtubs. In Louisiana they found wide, slow rivers to put their feet in. Everywhere they talked to the air, to him. Sometimes he imagined they could hear him reply.

 

Some of his visits weren’t so bad. Jack discovered he wasn’t limited to snow and ice. He could make others overlook his kids, or give someone an idea to check on someone that needed it. Sometimes he was able to leave kids alive and hopeful and safer.

 

The traditions they used were always changing. Some things would wax and wane and some seemed to disappear altogether only to surface suddenly somewhere far away or years (months, decades) later.

 

In the north, he started to find oranges left in little pyramids on window sills, asking for snow.

 

All across the continent he came to comfort kids through windows they’d left open.

 

He found himself underwater once, abruptly, without the heat of belief prompting him anywhere first. He opened his eyes to look up through the frosted layer of ice above him and saw four girls looking back at him. When he opened his mouth a bloom of red stained the water between them and the girls mirrored him, screaming. Three ran from the room they stood in, incongruously, while one reached out a trembling hand to touch the ice above his face.

 

He didn’t understand until he answered a call not much later and recognized that girl. There was no one he could fight or protect her from but she hadn’t been beyond saving.

 

But the first time he’d ever been able to _talk_ to someone, know they heard him, have a conversation? That was Jamie. That was kids who wanted Jack Frost and nothing from him but _fun_.

 

When he first learns about the Guardians, fights alongside them, becomes one of them, he’s filled with the warm glowing belief of kids all over wanting Jack, the Guardian of Fun. And he’s so glad to go to them.

 

Somehow it makes the other calls easier to bear. It’s as if Jamie had broken a barrier, popped a bubble, because when Jack answers a call after he and the others have defeated Pitch, the girl sitting with her feet in a backyard pool hears him when he asks her what’s wrong.

 

He can tell the difference between his believers because the calls feel different – warm and bright and full or hot and tight and urgent – but all of his kids want a guardian in some way.

 

He doesn’t talk to the others about the kids that believed in him before Jamie. It’s not that he’s ashamed or scared of what they’ll think, but talking about it feels like tattle telling and tastes like betrayal. He tells himself they don’t need to know.

 

He also doesn’t notice when they start to figure it out.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack liked to ride in North’s sleigh. It was even better than flying on his own winds and he accompanied North whenever he could wheedle his way onboard. North was great to talk to and they threw the conversation back and forth, thousands of feet above the ground and moving faster than thought.

 

On one ride, though, Jack’s laugh broke off so suddenly that North turned his head to catch him out of the corner of his eye to make sure he hadn’t fallen out or been hit by a bird or something.

 

He saw Jack leaning over the edge of the sleigh, but he looked steady enough.

 

“North, I’ve gotta go.” North looked over again because there’s something strange in his friend’s voice but a snowy wind was already kicking up to whisk him off.

 

Was it just his imagination or had his sweater been growing lighter?

 

 

* * *

 

 

On one night, Jack had passed the sandman with his hood pulled up and without his staff in hand. Sandy hadn’t even given a second thought to following him. He’d been headed down below an overpass, all kids have dreams. Even the ones that don’t believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, so Sandy’s been to his share of homeless camps and shelters. He wouldn’t have expected a kid that had to sleep outside to be wishing for snow.

 

“Please, please, make it stop.”

 

Sandy looked around the corner to see the little figure hunched in the dirt at the top of the slope under the bridge. Jack was on his knees in front of them.

 

“Hey, hey, don’t worry. I’m here.”

 

The child looked up and fell into Jack’s open arms.

 

Sandy couldn’t hear what else they said. Jack swung the child around to sit more firmly on the slope and a laugh parted the air briefly. The tracks from the tears on the child’s face were dirty but drying. Jack’s tone of voice drifted between light and serious and after a few moments Sandy heard him say, “You don’t need to worry.” Then he watched as Jack leaned forward and gave the child a comforting kiss, as if saying goodnight. Sandy’s impression was reinforced when Jack gently lowered the child to the ground.

 

He blew a breath into his cupped hands and then rubbed them together before rocking to his feet and walking away. He headed directly out from under the bridge, bypassing the little encampment of people huddled around a fire there. When Sandy goes to check on the child, he saw that they didn’t dream because they weren’t sleeping.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In early spring, when the wind still held a nip and the plants hadn’t yet decided it was time to put out new growth, Jack stuck himself to Bunnymund’s side.

 

The way Jack talked, he’d’ve thought the kid had never seen anything so impressive as a few colored eggs. Bunnymund laughed at him and joked about how they weren’t anything special but as the day wore on he painted less and less of the eggs solid colors, or striped, or polka-dotted.

 

Encouraged, he started painting more elaborate designs on each. There were eggs with dotted pictorals and swooping lines that told a story. There were eggs with the bold, hard lines of symbolic knots.

 

Gratifyingly, Jack exclaimed over each. He’d abandoned his lazy seat as soon as Bunnymund put down the first interesting one. As he was finishing up the last of the day, Jack was looking over his shoulder, practically breathing down his neck and not saying a word.

 

So, Bunnymund offered to paint his hands. After all, his skin was so white, it was practically begging for decoration.

 

Later that week, Bunny looked up from hiding eggs on the beach for a shoreline community and saw two figures out in the surf. A girl in regular clothes, not dressed for swimming, and the other sitting in front of her hovering in the air. The second figure reached out to grip the girl by the elbows and Bunnymund stared. “…Jack,” he said aloud. Even with the change in clothing and hair color – even missing his staff – he would have recognized those hands anywhere.

 

A moment later the girl turned and trudged back to the shore. Bunnymund was prepared to march over to the other sprite and demand an explanation, but Jack twirled around lightly and sped off over the ocean, skimming his fingers in the water.

 

* * *

 

 

The fairy squeaked when a loud crash happened somewhere else in the house. She froze when she heard a strangled sob from the bed.

 

The little girl’s eyes caught the light leaking in from under the door for a moment before she turned her head back into her pillow. The fairy had seen worse than a child scared by fighting in her time. She’d been helpless through worse.

 

There was another crash, followed by shouting, but it was rooms away and muffled. The little girl’s gasps and whimpers were also muffled.

 

The fairy drifts forward slightly. She couldn’t just let a child’s tears go uncomforted –

 

Then another voice spoke. Clear and bright, it said, “I’m here. It’s alright.”

 

The girl’s head turned again and this time her tears catch the light. “Breathe in with me?” said the voice from near her bed. A faint outline formed, limned with the light from the door yet casting no shadow. “I’ll keep you hidden now. Breathe out.”

 

There was a loud thump – so close! And the fairy realized the shouting was getting closer as well. She squeaked and darted forward to hide. The child’s labored breath caught.

 

The boy by her bed reached out for her hand and held it up to his own insubstantial chest. He didn’t even notice the fairy as she dashed behind the pillow. “Breathe with me.”

 

The two stayed like that as the fight raged closer. The girl’s eyes on the boy, not the fairy and not the door. Her breathing calmed just enough to draw in steady air. “Now,” the boy said, gently tucking her arm back under the covers, “close your eyes. Let’s have a little fun. What are your friends’ names?”

 

The covers were gently tugged over the girl as she started talking. “Mary, Kyle, Emma,” she rasped in the same rhythm her benefactor had used.

 

“Think of the best time you’ve had together. Are you picturing it? Tell me about it.”

 

The little girl answered, even more softly but with confidence. The fighting passed her closed door. The two talk softly for some time even after there was a final loud slam and the fighting stopped.

 

Eventually, their whispers tapered off and the figure rose from his kneeling position by the bed. He didn’t speak another word. The fairy was sure he hadn’t seen her.

 

And then he left.

 

* * *

 

 

Toothiana hardly ever had to visit the shelters herself. There just weren’t enough kids there who still really believed in her.

 

She was just finishing up when a child in the next bed over gasped. Toothiana looked up, but the little girl wasn’t looking at her. She was cowering under her blankets and staring down the aisle.

 

Tooth followed her gaze to a boy dressed in grey. There were other children she noticed, watching from their beds. Their staring eyes bright in the dim light. But this is one of the girls’ rooms. Tooth felt a chill creep over her, because this was the girls’ room and no boy should be there so late at night.

 

The boy was carrying a baseball bat casually against his shoulder. His hair and clothes had so little color it almost looked as if he was glowing, but his lips were blue tinged and the skin around his eyes was hot and pink as if he’d been crying. He looked formidable, frightening. He looked like a friend of hers, dead. Toothiana had heard stories from her fairies. They told her about a boy who comes to scared children but she couldn’t imagine that someone so scary was supposed to be comforting.

 

He stopped at one bed and carefully propped the bat up against the frame before kneeling down so his eyes were on level with the bottom bunk.

 

She was drifting forward – she didn’t have to worry about being seen here – when the boy stood abruptly and vanished in a whirl of freezing wind.

 

None of the children made a sound. Some hide their faces. When Toothiana approached the bed the boy had knelt beside she found a girl wiping her eyes and smiling. Her sister, sharing the bed, was hiding a laugh in her hair. They didn’t seem at all alarmed.

 

* * *

 

 

She was the most likely of the Guardians to overhear conversations. She heard children at sleepovers teasing each other and scaring themselves with the story of Drowned Jack where once they had whispered about Bloody Mary.

_Saint Snow’s always waiting. Put your feet in water and say his name three times at midnight and he’ll come to steal your breath away._

 

I _heard he takes your breath because he died drowning. And now that he’s doomed forever to wander the earth he’s jealous of everyone alive._

_Drowned Jack, Drowned Jack, got your back. Better not cross ‘im, better not fight ‘im. He’ll give you a whack with his baseball bat. Drowned Jack._

_Anna’s friend’s sister saw Saint Snow when she fell off a bridge! Really! She says he’s the one that helped her back to shore._

 

Kids gathered in a bathroom at midnight during sleepovers and hissed and hushed and whispered until they worked up the courage to chant, “ _Drowned Jack, Drowned Jack, Drowned Jack_.”

 

They said that he had drowned. He had killed himself by jumping into a frozen pond. He had saved his seven sisters who had fallen in and drowned in their place instead. He was a protector – he would now try to save other children who wanted to hurt themselves. He was a demon – he would steal breath to replace his own and violence called him forth.

 

She wouldn’t have believed any of it – except… except she had seen… And she had heard her own stories from her fairies. The contradictions in the stories and the way he’d looked when she’d glimpsed him were what made her finally bring it up to the Guardians.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack hadn’t expected the other guardians to be there when he got back to the North Pole. And they obviously hadn’t expected him because their conversation cut short when he walked in on them. “Whoa, whoa, guys. The atmosphere’s so thick in here I could sculpt it.” He knocked his staff against the empty air as if it were solid, grinning. They didn’t respond. “Guys?” His expression froze. The others were looking at him, obviously uncomfortable. He reached up to prod at his cheek. “Do I have something on my face?”

 

“Jack.” Toothiana was the first to speak and the other three shifted, as if giving her the room for it. “Where have you been?”

 

Jack frowned. The way they were acting setting him on edge. “I went to visit some kids.”

 

“Ya went visiting like that, didya?” Bunnymund said, gesturing.

 

Jack looked down at himself. “…Yeah?” he said. “What’s wrong with how I look?”

 

“You just look – well, you look a little…” Toothiana started, tentative. She winced at her own hesitation.

 

North interrupted. “You look dead.”

 

Jack frowned. Before he could say anything Sandy gestured and formed a looming figure – something like Jack but with dark pits where its eyes should have been and thunking a baseball bat into one hand menacingly.

 

It was Jack’s turn to grimace. “Is this just about my staff?” he asked.

 

“Yeah, alright. Let’s start there,” Bunny said. “Where is your staff?”

 

“What are you talking about? It’s right here.” Jack motioned with it, not loosening his hold,

 

“Not staff, Jack. Baseball bat,” North said.

 

Jack looked down at it, surprised that they’d even taken note. “Well, yeah,” he said. “But it’s still my staff.”

 

“It don’t look like you’re using it for much fun, mate.”

 

A week ago he’d hit imaginary homeruns with snowballs that a girl with no home to go back to threw. They’d both laughed.

 

“Well, it’s not meant for fun. It’s more for show, you know.”

 

“Show.” Bunny’s voice was flat. It made Jack bristle even further.

 

“Show of force? Show of fear? Is not looking good, Jack.”

 

Jack didn’t meet North’s eyes. He was wishing he’d just waited a few moments before he came in. Even as they talked now, his staff was growing and thinning out into the shape they would be familiar. “Look are you guys going to say what you really want to or what? I don’t need to hang around for the third degree or whatever’s happening here –“

 

“We’ve talked about it,” Toothiana said, “and we think we’ve all seen you, Jack, with the kids. Like this. You’re different.”

 

“No, I’m not.”

 

“I’ve heard them talking. They called you Saint Snow.”

 

The name from her was like a slap across the face. “What?” Jack wasn’t objecting to the name – he’d never heard a kid actually call him that but it was as familiar and as much his as the jacket he was wearing. But the way she said it made it sound twisted. Wrong.

 

“Jack, they call you the Saint of Suicides.”

 

She looked sad as she said it. The others all held themselves strong, lips pressed in tight lines and arms crossed – except Sandy.

 

Sandy walked toward Jack, making a patting motion, and faced the others. The pictures he formed now were of a shivering child and a visitor – Jack, with empty eyes and baseball bat. Jack looked away when a thin, insubstantial copy whisped out of the child and rode up on a dream-horse with the sand-Jack waving goodbye.

 

He knew what Sandy was saying, and the others did as well.

 

“That’s not something I _like_ doing,” Jack muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand.

 

“Ya can’t mean that this is better,” North boomed. Jack’s hand went back to his staff, automatically, but he was talking to Sandy.

 

Sandy’s pictures were now of empty-eyed Jack playing patty cake with a child while two arguing figures next to them faded away. Jack and the child grew empty smiles and kept playing.

 

“That’s not what guardians do,” Bunny said.

 

Jack answered, “Not what – What? You mean _protecting_ kids? That’s not what we do?”

 

“Yer the Guardian of Fun! Not the Guardian of – of—“

 

“What do you think I’m doing, but letting them have some fun? You think it’s easy to have fun when the nights are cold and you’re sleeping outside? Or when someone who’s supposed to love you hurts you? Or when everyone who could be your friend tells you they hate you day after day? I _protect_ them. I _help_ them.”

 

He was breathing hard. And, _not now_ , he feels another call flicker.

 

“What have you done?” North demands.

 

Toothiana turns then. “I believe him,” she says, beating her wings faster. “It doesn’t _look_ good, but you haven’t seen him with kids like this. They’re not scared of him. He makes them feel safe.”

 

Jack nods at her. His jaw is still tight, but he swings the bat a bit, feeling a little bit lighter with two of the Guardians on his side.

 

“If it is good, why did you not tell us?” North says. Bunny looks thoughtful, staring at him.

 

“I didn’t not tell you guys stuff! This is just part of who I am. This is part of what the kids believe in.”

 

“I don’t think so,” Bunny says. “You’re like a different person. I think they’re not calling for Jack Frost when they call for Saint Snow.”

 

The little girl he’d just left had squeezed her teddy bear tight and huffed a steady stream of _jackjackjackjackjack_ into its fur until he’d come striding into the room as if there was nothing to be afraid of.

 

“I think I know who they’re calling for,” Jack told him icily.

 

Toothiana turned to look at him, but Jack was tired of the back and forth and apparently shifting opinions. “Whatever. Look, I’ve gotta go.” He leapt and left them.

 

* * *

 

 

The house his pulse led him to had five tiny oranges neatly stacked on the back porch, which was momentarily confusing. For one, it was late spring in this part of the world and his hold wasn’t strong enough to bring the asked-for snow. For another, out of all of his believers, the ones simply asking for snow were usually much less pressing.

 

Jack twirled his bat, letting it come to a rest on his shoulder, and stepped forward.

 

He was caught short by a paw on his shoulder.

 

“What’re you about to do, mate?”

 

Jack turned and fixed Bunnymund with a glare. He let go, snatching his paw back. For a moment, while they’d all been talking, Jack had started to look more like himself. The frost had retreated from his jacket, the color had returned to his lips and cheeks, and his eyes hadn’t looked so raw. Now it was worse than when they’d begun the conversation.

 

“You _followed_ me?”

 

Bunnymund shifted. Crossed and uncrossed his arms. He usually knew where he stood with Jack. He hadn’t come to stop him, but the way he held the bat felt more like a casual threat than he’d ever seen from the boy.

 

The moment was broken by the sound of something breaking inside the house and a deep yell.

 

Bunny didn’t grab Jack when he started toward the building this time. He followed closely behind instead.

 

Once inside the house, there was another loud crash, and yelling that made him jump. Jack passed through an empty sitting room to an empty bedroom, walking straight up to the closet doors there and slipping inside.

 

He shut the door behind himself. Bunny wouldn’t have fit anyway. He fidgeted. No matter what was going on, Jack wouldn’t hurt a kid. He couldn’t believe it.

 

The crashing didn’t stop. From inside the closet there came soft murmurs. Unexpectedly, the door cracked open again and from inside Jack said. “Hey, Bunny. Someone in here doesn’t believe I’m friends with the Easter Bunny.”

_Saint of Suicides_ Toothiana had said he was called. He resisted the urge to thump a foot on the ground and shrunk himself down so that he could hop in.

 

The boy curled up under the hanging shirts and coats held a weak flashlight pointed at Jack. In the orange light, he didn’t look half so threatening and cold.

 

The boy wiped his arm under his nose and said, “So you brought a rabbit.”

 

Jack shut the closet door. “Not just any rabbit. Show ‘im, Bunny. I’ve got a bet to win here.”

 

The sounds of crashing had been cut off when the door closed and now in the close space he could feel the tentative hope wavering in the boy. So he hopped forward and said, “I hope you were on the right side of this one, kid, ‘cause I’m the Easter Bunny.”

 

The boy giggled. “No way!”

 

“Told you,” Jack boasted. “I’ve got friends, too.”

 

They stayed in the closet for a long time. Jack kept up his light bravado and Bunny played along. They traded turns telling the kid ever bigger and less likely tales and by the end he was laughing and giving them each outlandish contributions.

 

* * *

 

 

                Jack didn’t bring it up again, but neither did the other Guardians. He wondered if Bunny had talked to them, or if they’d simply seen how wrong they were. For a while Toothiana and North seemed to be choosing their words carefully around him, watching him, but their carefulness wore off and soon things were almost back to normal.

 

Which was good, because Jack wouldn’t have wanted to ever be at odds with his friends, but he wouldn’t abandon his duties, either. But, just like becoming a Guardian had let Jack talk to kids and be real to them being known by the Guardians in the end made Jack stronger, too Now he didn’t only have fun and distraction, he had Hope and Dreams, Wonder, and Memories of better times.

 

The Guardians didn’t talk about Saint Jack to each other but, occasionally, or when their paths crossed, they went with him to help.

 

This is how he learned to share his friends:

 

The girl who’d called him sat on her bed with something bright and sharp in her hand.  “They’re all a bunch of dicks,” she hissed when he approached.

 

Jack sat next to her and balanced his bat over his crossed legs. “How about we talk about something nice?”

 

Her eyes flicked from his face to the bat and back. She put what she was holding down and turned to mirror him. While she was negotiating the blanket over her legs – she spread it over his as well – he began. “Do you believe in Santa Clause?” She shook her head. Jack couldn’t keep his lips from curling. “Well, he’s a friend of mine. And you’ll never believe what his elves did last month.”


End file.
